


beneath the arc of the earth's halo

by grapehyasynth



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: 'shoeing, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Arctic Circle, Cold, M/M, POV David Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28799559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grapehyasynth/pseuds/grapehyasynth
Summary: David needs an escape from his family and Schitt's Creek, so he books a trip to a little town in the Arctic Circle. It's very cold and very dark and he's filled with regret. Fortunately, there are some sources of warmth.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 50
Kudos: 176





	beneath the arc of the earth's halo

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the phrase "long cold lonely nights", which I now don't know where it came from. It was also inspired, in part, by lyrics from "Blood Bank" by Bon Iver. 
> 
> Thx reymanova/costiellie for inspired beta work - "when does the smooching start" is more relevant than you'd think
> 
> Also, this takes place in the Canadian Arctic Circle, and I feel I should mention that First Nation and indigenous people make up a large portion of the population up there. I didn't explicitly include that - or really other elements of the actual reality of the Arctic Circle - in this story because I felt it would be at best lip service and at worst incorrect and poorly done, but I felt it was important to recognize. 
> 
> I did some general research on arctic-guide.net, but please don't call me out for inaccuracies xoxo

David regrets everything. 

That’s true in the broadest sense; he generally, literally, always regrets everything. Right now, though, he’s regretting the series of decisions, actions, missteps, and missed red flags that have led him to a tiny speck of a town in the Arctic Circle. 

He’d thought it would be like that time he went to Sweden and spent a month luxuriating in hot springs and drinking bespoke cocktails at the Ice Hotel. He’d been so desperate for a vacation, a chance to get out of Schitt’s Creek, that he maybe hadn’t quite done enough research before jumping at a cheap option. 

This is nothing like Sweden. He’ll be lucky if there are hot showers, never mind hot springs. He’d wanted a change of pace, a shock to his system, a challenge, an escape, but this is - this is like Schitt’s Creek on ice in the underworld. 

He stands at the edge of the town and regrets everything. The sun is setting over the endless white plains beyond the town. The sun literally came up, like, ten minutes ago. Why did it even bother? 

He’s very tempted to stride out into the tundra and scream into the unforgiving dark and cold. That seems right and therapeutic, surely. If this were a movie starring Sandra Bullock, that seems like where she’d start out, at her worst, raging against the night. 

He turns away. He’s not in the mood to make the national news as a sad, pathetic, lonely tourist who’d frozen to death on his first day. He’s not going to give Stevie the satisfaction of cackling at so ignominious a demise. 

Maybe tomorrow. 

❄️❄️❄️

“What if someone gets hurt, though?” David asks at the combination post office-general store, one of the town’s two official business establishments, when they tell him the next plane out isn’t for three weeks. If he’s stuck here, then everyone else is stuck with his trademark holiday cheer. “Like, I didn’t see a hospital on the way in. How quickly can the plane get here if I have a cardiac event?” 

“Are you planning on having a cardiac event?” Maybeth, the underwhelmed woman sorting mail behind the counter, cocks an eyebrow at him. 

“Our vet recently moved to the Galapagos,” the only other customer there, a man in a massively puffy blue jacket, comments as he sidles up to the register with three cartons of shelf-stable milk. 

“That’s not - I don’t need a vet,” David says blankly, then, “People keep pets here?! That has to be animal cruelty."

❄️❄️❄️

At least his rental is cute. Based on the paintings of farm animals in suits on each wall, this house either belongs to the town’s absentee veterinarian or an elderly woman who’d once wronged an agrarian artist. 

(David tries to take the paintings down on his first night. The goose, especially, looks like it doesn’t want him here, its eyes following him as he moves. But the damn things are basically cemented to the walls.) 

There are heaps of blankets and quilts on every chair and thick curtains over the window in the breakfast nook. He soaks in it for a day, the quiet, the isolation, even the cold, just for the way it feels like a different world than the one he’s left down south. He reheats canned soup and eats tuna out of the can and only burns himself twice on the stove. 

The next morning, he wakes up feeling surprisingly invigorated. He can smell someone’s wood stove nearby, and he looks up at the beams of the cabin’s ceiling and wriggles from his toqued head down to his double-socked toes. He’s hungry and cold and still a little concerned about what he’d do in a crisis - his cell service has been very spotty - but he’s never felt less lonely in solitude.

It lasts through his second cup of coffee, which he takes to the window seat with his journal. He pushes open the curtain - and sees his own reflection. 

Fuck. He’d forgotten about the darkness. 

He shuts the curtain and goes back to bed. His phone says 11AM. 

❄️❄️❄️

He spends the next few days sleeping and eating and sleeping and reading and sleeping, all the lights turned on when he’s not sleeping so that he can pretend it’s daytime. Well, it is sometimes daytime, but he wouldn’t know it, from the five seconds a day the sun decides to do its fucking job. 

It’s only when he realizes that he’s missing sharing a room with Alexis that he thinks he should probably, occasionally, leave the house. There’s no surer sign he’s starting to lose it than missing his sister. 

_Stir-crazy_ , he thinks, sitting in the town’s second official business establishment and stirring (ha) his drink. He wonders where that came from. Stir-crazy because your thoughts start to whirlpool in your mind? Stir-crazy because all you’ve eaten is soup and your eyeballs retain that swirling motion? Stir-crazy because-

“If you don’t drink that soon, it’ll freeze.” 

David looks up as the man from the post office slash general store sits down opposite him at the tiny table. The whole restopub is tiny. Its low ceilings and tight quarters are allegedly to conserve heat, but David thinks people here are just nosy and hope to eavesdrop on the bar’s patrons. Though he supposes he’s the only one they could be eavesdropping on; everyone here probably already knows each other’s business. David will not be sharing any of his business, thanks very much. He will engage with the local populace only as far as needed to retain the last dregs of his sanity.

“I was kidding,” the man says, his genial smile slipping into a worried frown. David realizes he hasn’t said anything. “About the drink freezing. It’s - kind of required, to make jokes like that, around here.” 

“Uh-huh.” David pokes at an ice cube with his straw. Why bother with ice at all, up here? 

“The ice is, uh, specially made from potable water.” 

David blinks. “Oh, sorry. Did I - did I say that out loud?”

“Um. No, you didn’t - you didn’t say anything out loud, I just - you were staring pretty hard at the ice cube, and I thought that would be an interesting fact. I know people think they melt the snow down to make the ice, but it’s actually not recommended.” 

David sips his drink, the ice sharply cold against his teeth. “Well, that was definitely a fact.” 

To his surprise, the man laughs. “That’s fair. I think I forget what counts as interesting after a while. I’m Patrick.” 

David shakes the hand that’s offered, still a little tacky from being inside a warm glove. “David.” 

“David. David of the cardiac event.” 

“Let’s not jinx it, please.” 

Patrick laughs again and settles in more firmly, his arms crossed on the table, their knees bumping under it. This place is _really_ small. David had had to stoop when walking across the room to keep from bumping his head. A concussion would only be slightly better than a cardiac event. 

“How long are you planning to stay, David?” 

“I will be on the first plane out. And before you get offended, I can’t afford to stay any longer than three weeks, not even eating soup and saltines.” 

“Well, that’s not much time!” Patrick says bracingly. He hasn’t even ordered a drink. David wonders if he’s the town mayor or head of tourism or if he just likes bothering the new people. “Any plans? I know a great snow-shoeing route if you want to-” 

“No, thank you,” David chuckles. “I plan on tossing back some flu medication, crying a bit, and then sleeping until Thursday.” 

The server appears, sliding a drink to Patrick. Okay, so he _had_ ordered a drink; doesn’t make him less annoying. The drink is steaming and smells of red wine and spices. David’s mouth waters. How had they let him order a _cold_ drink?! 

Patrick catches him gazing longingly at the mug. “Do you want some? Maeve spikes it, so you have to sip it slower than you would regular mulled wine, but it’ll warm you for your long hibernation.” 

“I’m not a bear,” David mutters. 

Patrick’s eyes flick over David’s shoulders and chest. “No, I can see that.” 

David chokes on his drink. 

❄️❄️❄️

There’s a knock on the cabin door. David yeeps and nearly rips the shirt he’d been refolding. 

“Who is it?” he calls. He has no concept of what time it is; it would be fitting for him to get murdered with an ice pick in the middle of a long Arctic night. Less pathetic than screaming into the wind, but definitely still cliche. 

“It’s the polar bear from the Coke commercials!” 

David rolls his eyes at the still-closed door. “Give me a minute. I have to - get into - all this stuff-” 

He clambers into his outer gear as quickly as he can. He’d learned, after the first few times he’d opened the door to check the weather, that even the brief moment of having the door open can be unpleasant unless properly attired. He hopes people here are generally antisocial; he hates to think of them doing this every time someone swings by for a chat. Jocelyn would be a menace in this environment, popping in and out of townspeople’s homes and causing them to dress and undress. There’d probably be a spate of broken legs as people hopped to get their snow pants on. Or maybe only David has that difficulty. 

He eventually lets Patrick in. It’s daytime - suntime, rather. “You think you’re very funny.” 

“The comeback doesn’t land as well when you deliver it five minutes later,” Patrick informs him placidly. 

“It wasn’t _five minutes_.” 

“I could hear you thrashing and flailing in here. You _have_ put clothes on before, right?” 

David gestures furiously to the insulated plastic overall get-up he’s got on over his sweater and under his open coat. “Forgive me for not having a lot of practice putting _this_ kind of thing on! There are, like, sixty straps, and I was never into the whole harness look. I also don’t get a lot of visitors, which reminds me, can I help you?” 

“I thought we could go out.” 

David blinks. “I’m...busy.” 

Patrick looks dubiously around the tiny cabin. “What were you doing?” 

“I was - reorganizing my knits.” 

“And that’s...time-sensitive?” 

Admittedly, David hadn’t really packed enough knits for this trip to require extensive reorganizing. He’d actually been reorganizing every item of clothing he brought as well as those he’s borrowed or bought since arriving. But it seems unnecessary to explain all that. 

“Um. I suppose I can finish that later. What are you - where are we going?” 

“We’ll stay within the town limits, don’t worry. Wouldn’t want you to get eaten by an abominable snowman.” 

David frowns at him but zips up his coat.. “Every day I spend here I learn of a new and more depressing way to die.” 

“Well, you won’t be dying of frostbite on my watch. Here,” Patrick says, and he moves in close, their puffy coats brushing. He takes each end of the scarf draped loosely over David’s shoulders and wraps it once, twice, three times around before snugging the ends into his collar. Then he tugs the highest bit of the scarf up over David’s chin and mouth and nose and pulls his hat down over that. “There. You should really invest in a balaclava, but this’ll do.” 

“Ooh, I love those! Is there a bakery here somewhere that I’ve been missing?” 

Patrick laughs and watches as David struggles into his boots. “Something like that.” 

❄️❄️❄️

It’s better in the daylight, he finds on that first short walk with Patrick along the paths that the townspeople have tramped into the snow. It’s overcast, some clouds trying to spoil the effect, but it’s still _daylight_. The cold isn’t as cutting, the wind isn’t as high, and there’s more charm to the endless white wasteland on every side, more sparkle. He can see that some of the little houses have been painted cheerful colors, and in the sunshine they look almost cozy, snuggled together with smoke rising lazily from chimneys. 

He tugs his scarf down from his nose and tilts his face to the sun, only caring a little if his cheeks get chapped from the cold. Now that he thinks about it, he remembers feeling this way during his first few days in Sweden as well, barely getting through the night and then drinking up the sun like a person dying of thirst. His Swedish friends had laughed and told him that living like that he’d always be thirsty. He’d stopped going outside at all after that. 

As promised, Patrick keeps them within the town limits, but he makes them do the same loop four times before he’ll let David go home. The sun is just setting as he finally relents. 

“Look,” he nudges, and David turns his scowl away from the horizon, which is already swallowing the sun. “The streetlights come on at dusk. It always makes me feel like I’m in a Christmas village.” 

David hadn’t noticed them, the time or two he’s ventured outside in the dark. He’d been too busy trying not to slip on the ice, maybe. 

“They’re nice,” he admits. They do look festive. 

“Powered by geothermal energy,” Patrick adds. 

David looks at him. He’s pulled his scarf back up and his brows are covered by the brim of his hat, so he hopes his eyes can convey the appropriate judginess. “Is that another of your interesting facts?” 

“I’m full of them.” 

“You’re full of _something,_ that’s for sure.” 

He drops David at his door, as if it were possible to get lost when there are basically two streets. Still, it’s - gentlemanly, or courteous, or something. 

“I’ll have more to show you when it’s not cloudy,” Patrick says, and he just winks and leaves it at that. 

❄️❄️❄️

There’s a tile in the kitchen floor that’s heated. 

David discovers it when he’s already been there almost a week. He’s making the single stride that’s necessary to cross from the fridge to the stove when his feet are suddenly far happier than the rest of his body. 

“Oh!” he exclaims, and he wobbles and nearly falls over as he aborts his plan mid-step in favor of staying on this tiny section of paradise. 

They’d had heated flooring in several of their old houses, before - _before_ \- and as a kid he’d followed them like a cat, ignoring his father’s suggestion that he put some socks on instead. Like heated car seats or electric mattress covers or a hot tub, there’s an indelible luxury to steady, reliable warmth. 

He’s pretty sure this particular heated tile is accidental; maybe a pipe passes too close below it or something. He should probably report that in case it’s a fire hazard. 

He wiggles his toes. Maybe he’ll report it next week. 

❄️❄️❄️

“Checkmate.” 

“Fuck you.” 

Patrick just grins and starts setting up the board again. The choices at the restopub are either chess or Yahtzee, and while David’s never seen the beauty in chess - Patrick’s the latest in a long line of people trying to convince him otherwise, but it lacks the creativity David craves - he does prefer its rhythms to the spontaneous yelliness of Yahtzee. 

“What if,” he muses, as Patrick finishes aligning the pieces and looks up at him expectantly, “we wrote celebrity names on the bottoms of each of the pieces and when you get knocked out, we have to do a round of Catch Phrase?” 

They ditch the idea after just one round; they have wildly different cultural references. 

Lately they’ve been ending up here every night, playing one of the battered games on offer at the restopub, usually over Maeve’s strong mulled wine or some spiked hot chocolate. He suspects it’s cocoa powder from a packet, but he’ll let it slide. Sometimes this townsperson or that will come over and greet Patrick and pull him away for a spontaneous singalong; Patrick plays the accordion, David has recently and horrifically learned, as well as the guitar and the honky-tonk piano at the back wall of the pub, and so he’ll play and overconfident townspeople will bellow along with him and David will hide in the corner and wonder how he got here.

Since that first sunny stroll, Patrick has been coming by to pick him up for a walk every day around sunrise, which is late enough that David’s awake and caffeinated and presentable. David feels a funny little warmth about it, and the feeling grows funnier and warmer and definitely less little when he learns that Patrick has started snowshoeing by headlamp so that he can make time for these daily excursions. 

He purposely doesn’t talk about Schitt’s Creek. He’s fallen into this weird middle ground where he misses it - misses his stupid family, misses the walk between the motel and the cafe, misses the sound of the crickets at night - but isn’t ready to process it with anyone else yet. If Patrick notices that he steers their conversations away from anything too specifically personal, he has the grace not to comment or push. 

With the regularity of this social commitment, he finds he has to schedule his other activities accordingly. He actually starts journaling, even when it’s dark out, even when he opens the curtains and wants to go back to bed. He has to get his writing in before Patrick shows up. 

And after Patrick, in the long stretch of afternoon before he can go to the restopub, he finds himself sketching and painting, which he hasn’t done since they lost everything. He hadn’t brought anything with him for this trip, because he hadn’t expected to be doing much other than relaxing, but he finds some shitty art supplies at the general store and makes do. He sketches random objects around the cabin - the way the blankets fall on his unmade bed, the fuzzy edges of the reflection of a candle in the darkened windowpane, the grain of a board in the wall. He even pulls up some pictures on his phone of his family and people back in Schitt’s Creek and draws mini portraits of each of them. He can never, ever show them to anyone. 

❄️❄️❄️

The days still languish - there’s a certain tightness in his chest of panic about not making it through the long, dark hours, a relief when he finally goes to bed - but there’s a discernible shift. He thinks back to his first few days here, when he’d spent most of his time sleeping and had felt shitty about it but couldn’t bring himself to do anything else, and he finds a compassion and understanding for himself that he doesn’t expect. That hadn’t been giving up; that had been unfolding, exhaling, shuffling, adjusting. 

❄️❄️❄️

Towards the end of his second week, they finally get a night that’s practically cloudless. David notices it first in the brilliantly bright stars freckled across the sky on his way to the pub, but he doesn’t understand the import, not really, until Patrick’s walking him home after six excruciating games of chess. 

“Oh, wow, finally,” Patrick gasps, and he pulls him off the path and out to the edge of the village, where it’s darker. 

Where it _should_ be darker, anyway, but right now, the sky and even the snow are lit up in greens and purples, the most ethereal, otherworldly, breathtaking thing David’s ever seen. 

“Holy fuck,” he whispers, feeling a bit bad about cursing in the reverent stillness. “I forgot about this.” 

Patrick laughs, the sound muffled by the scarf over his face. “You booked a vacation in the Arctic Circle and you didn’t think about the Northern Lights?” 

“My thought process was literally _how far away can I get tomorrow without creating a negative balance in my bank account_. The details seemed irrelevant.” 

They’re both silent for a long moment, watching the colors dancing above the horizon and shimmering in muted form on the snow below. 

“Well, I’m glad that ill-planned search led you here,” Patrick says earnestly, and the little David can see of his face is glowing. 

❄️❄️❄️

There’s a tiny potted plant on the windowsill inside the post-office-slash-general-store. David notices it for the first time the day before he’s supposed to leave, as he waits for Maybeth to check if there’s any mail for him. (There won’t be; Stevie’s the only one with whom he’d shared his address, just in case he does perish up here, and she’s definitely not sending him care packages.) He’s not sure why it takes so long to check, given the town’s tiny population, but Maybeth’s been in the back for three minutes already and so here he is, looking at a hardy but bedraggled little plant and feeling an odd kinship to it. 

He’s never really understood why people liked plants, but he thinks he gets it now. There’s an arc to its leaves that touches the place in him that has always wondered if he’s just had bad luck in life or if it’s from some darkness he carries with him - if he’s chosen unhappiness without even knowing it. Seeing the way people here make a little daylight of their own - be it through hot drinks or songs in the pub or coaxing a potted plant through the long winter - he wonders if he could do that. If he got stuck here somehow, and couldn’t make it back to warmer climes, could he keep himself from falling into despair? Maybe he already has (with help, though he won’t tell Patrick). Maybe there’s a version of him who lives the rest of his life here. He could help fix this mess of a general store. He could take up knitting and launch his own winterwear line. He could get really into hot chocolate flavor combinations and ask Patrick to test them all. 

He’s not leaving with a sunny disposition or chronic optimism or any of the other incurable diseases that seem to afflict Twyla, but he’s leaving with - something. Maybe a better recognition of what was already there? 

Worst case scenario, if he goes back to Schitt’s Creek and finds that nothing has really changed, at least he’ll be grumpy in ample sunlight. 

❄️❄️❄️

The plane is supposed to arrive in six hours and David can’t find Patrick anywhere. 

It’s ~~their last day together~~ David’s last day, and he’d thought they’d get to spend at least some of it together. A big snowstorm has blown up, all the more reason to find somewhere to hunker in until it passes.

He wastes the entire hour of sunlight - shrouded as it is by the blizzard - waiting for Patrick’s knock at his door. It never comes. 

When his bags are packed, he pushes through the wind and the snow to Patrick’s apartment. There’s no answer. He struggles to the post office, where Maybeth has already closed up for the day. He’s not at the restopub either. 

“I think he was headed out for a quick snowshoe this morning,” Sanjay offers as he wipes down the counter. For once, David’s grateful that everyone here knows everyone else’s business. 

Trying not to panic, David returns to Patrick’s apartment. He’s texted him five times to no response, so it’s only fair that he break in, just to make sure Patrick’s not in there, unconscious or worse. 

The door’s unlocked, because people here have even more of an absurd sense of community than they do in Schitt’s Creek, but there’s no Patrick. David’s not sure that’s better than finding him sprawled on the carpet with a trickle of blood at his temple, or something. 

David makes himself a cup of tea and sits on the couch to wait. And wait. And have another cup. And wait. 

When Patrick opens the door, he’s more icicle than man. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” David gasps, hurling himself across the room as Patrick fights the wind to get the door closed. He’s hugging Patrick before he can think better of it - before he remembers the snow and ice covering every inch of Patrick’s clothes and skin, before he remembers they’ve never hugged before. “Where the hell have you been? My plane’s leaving in, like, an hour!” 

“Hate to break it to you, David,” Patrick pants, and his cheek against David’s neck is both hot and cold at once, “but your plane’s not getting through tonight. Probably not tomorrow either.” 

“ _What?!”_

“But I appreciate the concern. I, uh, didn’t mean to get caught up in this. I thought I’d be back before the worst of the storm set in.” 

It’s only then that David registers that Patrick’s shaking, and not only from cold. He pulls back quickly, taking Patrick’s shoulders in both hands, giving his bright-red face and bluish lips a once-over. 

“Are you okay?” he asks stupidly. Patrick’s _just_ said he’s been out in the snow hours longer than he’d prepared for, of course he’s not fucking okay. 

“I, uh - I’m-” 

It’s all the answer David needs. “Come here.” 

He leads Patrick to the couch, where he helps him shimmy off his coat and gloves and snow pants. Patrick supports himself with a hand on David’s shoulder as David unlaces his boots and eases those off too. 

“How do your toes feel?” he asks as he inspects Patrick’s hands. They look okay, normal color, decent range of motion as they flex in David’s hold. 

Patrick gives one foot an exploratory wiggle. “A little stiff.” 

“Keep moving them.” David presses him down onto the couch and covers him with the knitted throw from the back of the couch, snugging it in tight around Patrick’s thighs and arms. “If anything feels off, you have to let me know, okay? I’m not qualified for this.” 

The water is still hot - he’s boiled it a few times since he’s arrived, and he’s _really_ going to need to pee soon - so he’s back at Patrick’s side in a moment with a cup of tea. He tries to pass it to Patrick, but Patrick hisses and retracts his hands. 

“Right, fuck,” David mutters. “Um-” 

He lifts the mug to Patrick’s lips, steadying them both with his free hand at the side of Patrick’s jaw, fingertips brushing under his ear, through the hair at the nape of his neck. He feels how cold Patrick’s neck is, and as Patrick sips gratefully at the tea, he starts to knead at the skin available to him, gentle circular motions. 

Patrick eventually hums and David lowers the mug. “Want more?” 

“I think I’m okay for now.” Patrick smiles at him, already looking stronger, more clear-eyed. His outer layers do seem to have properly insulated him; his sweater and jeans and the little bit of his long underwear that’s sticking out his pant leg and pulled down over his socks all seem dry. 

David sets the mug on the coffee table by the couch. “Give me your hands.” 

Patrick watches him as he slowly, tenderly rubs feeling back into Patrick’s hands. The knuckles need lotion and his wrists feel tight, and David tends to all of it, softening where he feels he needs to, digging in where he can. 

When he can no longer justify continuing without really pushing the creepiness factor, David lets both pairs of hands settle at the juncture where their knees are pressed together. 

“Thank you, David,” Patrick says quietly. His voice is low and rough like the ceiling beams at the restopub. “I was worried you were going to leave before I had a chance to say goodbye.” 

David clears his throat. “Well, fortunately, a storm blew in, and some guy told me I won’t actually be leaving as soon as I thought.” 

“Some guy, huh?” Patrick chuckles. 

David wants to shoot it back, wants to roll his eyes, but he meets Patrick’s gaze instead, finding the warmth that’s been another of the sources of daylight for him over these Arctic weeks. “Some guy indeed,” he murmurs, hoping the emphasis is felt. 

Patrick’s palm is warm when it comes up to cup David’s face, but his lips are cold against David’s, and well, David can’t leave a job unfinished. (That’s a lie, he’s left dozens of unworthy, unfinished projects scattered behind him, but making sure Patrick is properly warm is worth the effort.) It takes Patrick a few moments, his kisses lagging a bit behind David’s, but then he matches him in eagerness and heat until they’re stumbling into Patrick’s bedroom, undressing, diving under the covers before the chill can cut too deep. 

(David would never say it out loud, but he thinks of the Northern Lights when he comes.) 

It’s the warmest night either of them have had in a while.

❄️❄️❄️

Patrick had been right, David confirms with Maybeth the next morning at the post office - the plane’s been delayed a few days until the worst of the weather clears. Maybeth apologizes; David just smiles at her and her plant. 

They go out for a walk in the spare sunlight, and then they go back to bed, and somehow David thinks Patrick belongs here, in the Arctic, for the way the cold gives such powerful contrast to the heat of Patrick’s hands, his lips, his tongue. 

Laying together afterwards, he tells Patrick about Sweden and the Ice Hotel, and Patrick laughs, but then he pulls David into the hot shower and lets them stay in extra long so steam builds up, and when David emerges from the bathroom after completing his skincare routine, Patrick’s built a fort for them of sheets and chairs and desk lamps. 

“It’s no Ice Hotel,” he says, as if he’s apologizing. 

“That’s okay,” David assures him, with a fake lightness. “I’ve been to the Ice Hotel before. I’ve never been in one of these.” 

He squeezes Patrick’s arm and ignores the look he knows those big eyes are giving him, and he doesn’t let Patrick defile him in the blanket fort but they get in some good necking nonetheless. 

❄️❄️❄️

Patrick walks him to the landing strip someone’s cleared out in the plains beyond the town, where the rickety little airplane is waiting. The wind still takes David’s breath away; he’d hated that, so much, when he’d climbed off the plane three weeks ago. 

His eyes are watering for a different reason this time, though. Can’t blame that one on the wind. 

He’d come here for the extremes, to get as far away - physically and in spirit - from his family and Schitt’s Creek as he could, to get shaken up and woken up. But where he’d craved the cold and the isolation, he’d found a town that creates its own warmth and light, that muffles its isolation with singalongs and a seemingly innate awareness of where everyone is at all times. Like even the extremes can be brought to heel. Like even the extremes he’d fled - feeling crowded, overwhelmed, desperate, uninspired, hopeless, frustrated - could be curbed. 

They stop just outside the shadow the plane is throwing on the snow. 

“Thank you for a lovely vacation,” David chokes out, like Patrick is the town’s tourism ambassador, just as David had once mused he could be.

“Thank you for letting me be a part of it.” Patrick’s mittened thumb finds David’s skin just under the cuff of his coat. “And hey, phones are a thing. We could - we could stay in touch-” 

“Patrick,” David says, and he’d hoped this would go down easy, that neither of them would bring it up, “if it were anywhere else, if this were - Seattle, or Vancouver, or St. Louis, then sure, I’d say let’s give it the long-distance try. But I am _never_ coming back here. Like, I like to think I could? I’m really proud of myself, to be honest. But it’s - it’s way too cold, and this is your home-” 

Patrick laughs. He’s tugged down his balaclava for their goodbye and his laugh mists in the air between them. “David, I don’t live here.” 

David rears his head back. “What the fuck?” 

“I told you that, like, the day we met.” 

“Okay, I’m sorry for not remembering every single tiny detail you’ve told me about yourself.”

“I come here every year for the great ‘shoeing landscape. I live in Toronto.” 

David nearly whites out. “You live in _Toronto_? You mean I could’ve spent the last three weeks envisioning us having cute dates at Scaramouche? Picnics at Riverdale Park?! The - the garden part, not the farm part, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Patrick agrees seriously. “And I think Scaramouche is a bit beyond both of our budgets.” 

“In my daydreams, we can afford whatever we want,” David huffs. 

“So does that mean,’” Patrick says, and the way he draws David closer, their puffy coats an unfortunate barrier between them, definitely bodes ill, “that you’ve spent the last three weeks envisioning futures for us? _Here_?” 

“No,” David lies. “But maybe I would have, if I knew Toronto were an option.” 

“Uh-huh.” Patrick kisses him like he doesn’t even care that David’s a filthy, filthy liar. “So. Do you actually want to do this, since I live a full 20 degrees latitude south of the Arctic Circle? Or were you trying to let me down easy?” 

David shakes his head, smiling, and then realizes he needs to clarify what he’s shaking his head at. “Letting you down wasn’t easy even when I thought you lived here.” 

Patrick’s answering smile is blinding. David has to kiss his nose; it’s probably getting cold, the poor thing. 

“Great,” Patrick breathes. “And hey, my apartment’s usually set to 18 degrees Celsius, but that’ll feel tropical after this, right?” 

“Joke’s on you, because I am now the owner of some impressive winter gear, and I am not above wearing it inside. I will be demanding mulled wine, though. And fortunately, it’s, like, basically always summer where I live.” 

David waves to Patrick out the plane window until he’s a speck on the white ground below, and then a while longer. He looks forward to the texts he’ll get when Patrick finds the small painting David had left for him, wrapped in brown paper and nestled on his pillow. He’d wanted to paint Patrick’s face the way it had looked the night they watched the sky together, but he’d settled on painting the Lights themselves. He hopes that it will provoke that same, glowing expression every time Patrick looks at it. 

And when the sun starts to set while they’re still flying south, it doesn’t fill him with dread the way it so recently had. It just makes him think of the next sunrise, and the next, and the next, and all the light he might find or create between them.

**Author's Note:**

> The "stir" in stir crazy allegedly comes from the name of an English prison. Your reminder to support decarceration and abolition 🙃


End file.
